


The Clockmaker's Apprentice

by fishebake



Category: Naruto
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Disassociation, F/M, How Do I Tag, I don't know anything about clocks, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Please Forgive me, Romance, Secret Identity, Slow Burn, Tags May Change, no beta we die like men, will update when I feel like writing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27794713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fishebake/pseuds/fishebake
Summary: Yoruki is a horologist in a village full of ninja. Sukea is an amateur photographer in a village full of ninja. Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl live happily ever after. At least that's what it would be if one of them wasn't a child soldier aggressively disassociating to avoid thinking about his obvious need for therapy. This goes as well as you'd expect.
Relationships: Sukea/Hakone Yoruki (OFC)
Kudos: 9





	The Clockmaker's Apprentice

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a fun little side project that I'll work on when I feel like it, so I would advise bookmarking it and checking on it every now and then. I'm also not fantastic at writing romance but! That's what this is for. Hope you enjoy!

Yoruki stands under her umbrella and rocks back and forth on her heels. The bakery line is long and the inside far too hot for her taste, so she stands on the sidewalk in the rain and waits for the echo of her number being called. 

Rain drips down from the leaves above and onto the oil-paper, sliding down the thin ridges and onto the ground around her. Yoruki hums softly, a song she’d heard on the streets the last time she was in the capital. Konoha was not very much like her old home. Here, there is a shinobi around every corner.

Still, she doesn’t feel unsafe. She’s been here for six years now and she’s learned to relax around them. They didn’t come to her shishou’s clock shop very often; their clients were mostly civilians like themselves. But even so, the shinobi who did come around seemed to like their wares, the hand carved and hand painted clocks that Kikuno had done since he was a young man. 

He wasn’t so young anymore. It takes him longer these days to work on his wares, and he gets headaches from squinting through his glasses for so long.

Originally, Kikuno had come to the capital to visit his sick cousin. The Hakone family had lived just next door to her as long as she could remember, and seeing a gruff old man arriving out of the blue one day had surprised all of them. 

Kaa-san continued to help out in every way she could, and at the end of Kikuno’s visit, Yoruki ended up going back with him to the village where the shinobi made their home.

At first, it was just to help out with his daily life and keep an old man company, but then he began to teach her how to prepare the wood, how to care for the tools, how to oil the tiny metal gears within each timepiece. They went from old man and caretaker to master and apprentice, as easily as a brush over well sanded wood.

Yoruki still takes care of the house, if only because Kikuno’s arthritis has gotten bad enough that she would prefer he rest and stay off his feet as much as possible. She’s thankful that they live above the store slash workshop, even if she also wishes they had the space to build a bedroom on the ground floor for him.

Which leads her to her current situation, standing under a tree in the rain with a basket on her elbow. 

The rain in Konoha is much fresher than the rain in the capital. Here, it doesn’t smell quite so much of sewage, and more of earth and green things. 

She hears footsteps approaching rapidly and turns to look. A village where shinobi lived always has interesting sights, if only one cares to look up.

A young man is running up to her - not a shinobi, she thinks, if only because he doesn’t have any weapons pouches or a chūnin vest - with a shoulder bag held over his head. He stops a couple feet away from here, taking a moment to catch his breath. 

“Oh, damn,” he mutters, lifting a camera up and peering at it with a frown. He is, she thinks, very handsome. Maybe not a shinobi, but Yoruki doesn’t think he’s a civilian either with those purple marks on his face. Shinobi tended to be dramatic folk, and even if their children didn’t follow in their footsteps, the dramatic tendencies remained. 

He taps the camera in annoyance. Water drips from a corner, and she suspects the instrument was exposed to more water than was good for it. 

They make eye contact. Yoruki feels herself flush a little bit as she looks away. Her feet still beneath her. Yes, he was very handsome. 

“Excuse me,” he says, “is this the line for the bakery?”

Yoruki shakes her head and twists the umbrella handle in her hand. Mother had always raised her to be polite. “Oh, no, I’m just waiting outside for my order to be finished. It’s cooler out here, you know?”

“I see. Thank you.” And then he heads inside. Yoruki smacks herself in the forehead and stomps in the puddle like a child.

“‘It’s cooler out here, you know’,” she repeats mockingly. “Stupid!”

She never was good at talking to attractive people. Even beautiful women left her tongue tied. Beautiful men with cameras more so. 

Yoruki sighs and kicks at a pebble. Oh well. She was happy apprenticing under Shishou, and making sure he was comfortable and had everything he needed. Just some days, she wanted a little bit more. 

It’s a surprise, then, when he comes out and stands next to her again. He’s absently toweling off his camera with a dry corner of his scarf as he does so, then peers through the lens. 

She swallows, practices her words in her mind several times before she dares to open her mouth. “Did you drop it?” she asks, and inwardly gives a cry of victory. She didn’t stutter or stumble over her words either. Outside of the store, where she didn’t have a script, conversations were difficult.

He glances up in surprise, and a droplet falls onto his nose. “Hm? Oh. I suppose that technically I did, though not of my own volition.” His mouth curls in annoyance, and Yoruki hides a smile at his expression behind a sleeve. She would not laugh at him, no matter how funny and adorable he was being at the moment. “I think I might have ruined it and the film.”

Oh, he sounded so disappointed.

Yoruki had taught herself to fix small home devices early on, mostly to make things easier on herself and her shishou. The man would always use items until they wore down, and then forget to get it repaired or replaced. It started with the radio, one of the earliest editions that somehow still worked. Then it was the neighbor’s tv, and then another neighbor’s radio, then another radio, and now she did the repairs for the entire block. She’d gotten quite good at it, and brought in a nice amount to boot.

“I can take a look at it, if you’d like,” she offers. It was adorable how expressive his face is. He seems equal parts surprised and possibly even delighted. Maybe even a bit doubtful too.

“Are you sure?” he asks, and yes, that was doubt. “I’m sure I can just put it in some rice or something.”

Please. This is her element. “Yes, I am, and depending on how soaked it is, I might even fix it,” Yoruki says with a bit of a smirk. “I’m not sure about the film, though, but I’ll do my best.”

He glances down at his camera, a bit of doubt still on his face. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t hand it to you right now.”

She laughs, letting the umbrella twirl in her hands. “Of course. We’re closed today, but if you want to come by Kikuno’s Horology any time after nine tomorrow, I’ll be happy to look at it then.”

“Thirty three! Number thirty three!”

Yoruki nearly drops her umbrella and her basket. “That’s my cue,” she says, straightening her yukata. “Try not to get too wet?” 

It comes out as more of a question, but she was really running out of things to say. Why did he have to be so pretty?

The smell of hot bread soothes her nerves a little bit. This would be enough to last them the week, until the next time she did the shopping. 

Panya-baa slips a small package inside her basket with a wink. “You tell Masahiro-san to not work so hard and enjoy himself, you hear me?”

Yoruki nods and tucks the cloth into the edges of the basket to preserve the warmth. “Thank you, baa-san. I’ll be sure to tell Shishou.”

The young man with the clock is gone when she comes outside, but she figures that he’s sought out better shelter than a leaky tree, and continues on her way back home.

* * *

“Shishou, I’m home!” Yoruki calls as she carefully toes off her shoes. Giving her umbrella a good shake before closing it, she slides on her slippers and steps out of the genkan. She can hear the scraping of blade on wood in the workshop, slow and deliberate. 

“Did you get the amanatto?” Kikuno shouts back. “I’ll be very upset if you forgot, Ruki-chan!”

“I didn’t forget, Shishou,” she says and laughs. She slides the shoji open to see him sitting at the shaving board. “Here. Panya-baa added a bit extra, I think.”

Kikuno stops dragging the blade across the slab of maple and accepts the package. “Ah, thank you, my dear. When you’re done putting the food away, come back here. Saito-san’s radio broke again and asked me to have you fix it.”

“Yes, Shishou,” Yoruki replies, and makes her way to the kitchen. Aside from the workshop, it is the only room downstairs with the shop. She sorts the groceries out before returning to the workshop. Saito-san’s radio was always breaking and she refused to get a new one, for understandable reasons. It had been her last birthday present from her late son before he died in the third war.

Yoruki is content to fix the radio as many times as she can before it gives up the ghost entirely. 

She starts off with a hum as she retrieves her tools and carefully removes the cracked casing, listening to the rasp of the shaving board. Frankly, she was in a rather good mood, and her good moods were frequently her singing moods as well. 

“Come now and follow me down,” Yoruki sings, aligning the tune to the beat of the blade, “down to the lights of Engaru where there's fine sailors walking the town and waiting to meet the ladies there. Watch now he'll soon be along; he's finer than any sailor so come on now pick up your spoons. He's waiting to hear you play them, whoo!”

She launches to her feet toward the end and lets her stool clatter to the floor. Yoruki _is_ in a good mood today, and she thinks it’s because of the handsome man she met earlier. Ah, who is she kidding, it’s almost certainly because of him.

Yoruki most definitely hopes that he’ll be by in the morning. 

“My, my, what has you in such a tizzy?” Kikuno asks in a bemused tone. She… kind of forgot that he was there, how embarrassing. It’s not exactly the first time he’s caught her singing and even dancing while doing her work; she’s lived here for some time now.

But still. Yoruki was his apprentice, and in many ways he was like a grandfather to her. There were just some things that shouldn’t be seen by a person in either of those positions. 

“Nothing, Shishou, I’m sorry,” she says. She picks up her stool and sits back down on it. 

Kikuno has caught the scent of a piece of gossip, and like a shark smelling blood in the water, he instantly hones in. “My foolish apprentice, what’s gotten into you on this damp, rainy day? Are you hiding something from your dear old master?”

She laughs and gently pushes him away. “No, Shishou, nothing happened today.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes, really.”

“There weren’t any hijinks with a boy, was there?” he teases. Yoruki instantly flushes red. “Aha! I knew it. My silly apprentice has her eye set on some young man, hasn’t she?”

“No,” she wails mockingly. “Shishou has discovered my secret. How will I go on?”

Kikuno laughs and hobbles back to the shaving bench. “Go on, give an old man a smidge of gossip, my dear.”

“It’s nothing, really,” Yoruki says, twisting a pair of wires together. “We happened to meet in front of the bakery this afternoon, and we talked a little bit. He got his camera wet earlier, so he may be coming by sometime tomorrow. That’s _all_ , Shishou. Nothing crazy.”

“Ah, young love,” he sighs, staring up at the ceiling with a moony expression. “I remember when my wife and I were in your position. Trust me, my dear, this young man of yours will show up tomorrow.”

Yoruki snorts and twists the dial a bit. Music floats through. “Yeah, to get his camera fixed.”

“And to gaze upon the beauty that is my young apprentice,” he adds. “I’m never wrong about these things, remember.”

“Bet,” she says. 

“Bet,” he grins back. “That soup you make sometimes; your grandmother’s secret recipe that you refuse to share if he comes to see you.”

“I promised her I’d pass it on to my own daughter and no one else,” Yoruki sniffs. “Another pocket watch if he’s only here to get his camera fixed.”

“Two weeks.”

“One.”

“Deal.” He turns back to his work and she fastens the casing back on. “I bet he’s absolutely smitten with you.”

“Shishou.”

* * *

Yoruki is manning the counter in the morning, gently prying apart the metal casing of a watch that had been hit with a stray kunai during a mission, so the kunoichi said. 

“I probably wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Dad’s old watch,” she explained, “so I’d really appreciate it if you could take a look at it and maybe even get it working again.”

The damage didn’t seem to be too bad. It was mostly the casing that was damaged, and a dented gear. Fairly easy to replace.

She has a hot pot of tea on her left and her watch tools on her right, so small they looked like they were for dolls. The door is unlocked, signs are up. She might have made a point of brushing her hair until it was smoother than silk, and might have gone for a fancier braid than she normally would have.

Yoruki refuses to let her hopes get too high. He might not come. _But he might_ , she thinks, butterflies in her stomach and a smile dancing along the corners of her mouth. 

The bell above the door rings, and when she looks up, she sees the uncertain face of the handsome stranger with the camera. Yoruki tries not to appear too happy as she sets aside the watch.

“Welcome!” she calls out. “I’m glad you decided to come.”

“I tried putting it in rice,” he said apologetically. “Ku- Someone I knew told me that rice dries things out pretty well.”

Yoruki accepts the camera and gives it a careful look over. It wasn’t dripping anymore, which is good. “Rice generally works with water damage,” she agrees. “I may have to pop the case open and make sure everything’s dried out properly.”

He leans against the counter. “By all means, Miss…?”

She ducks her head and tries not to blush. “Yoruki. Hakone Yoruki.”

“Charmed,” he drawls, giving her a smile that was somewhere between charming and smug. “I’m Sukea.”

“It’s nice to meet you again, Sukea-san,” Yoruki says warmly. She taps a chipped and cracked corner. “You mentioned yesterday that you dropped it?”

Sukea pulls a face. “Yes. I wasn’t watching where I was going, and ended up dropping it when some chūnin shoulder checked me.” He gives her an awkward smile. “Serves me right for forgetting the neck strap at home, I suppose.”

Yoruki bites the inside of her cheek. He’s just too adorable for words. 

The inside isn’t badly water damaged; the rice bath did well. The film, on the other hand…

“I’m so sorry, Sukea-san,” she says with a grimace, gently pulling out the clump of dried film. “I don’t think your pictures survived.” Maybe if he’d unrolled the film before he put it in the rice… “I’m no expert on camera film, I’m afraid. Maybe you can ask the shop from where you bought it?”

He runs a hand through his curls and sighs heavily. “I can’t; I bought this in the capital several months ago. Damn, I liked those pictures too.”

“I’m sorry,” Yoruki says again, unsure of what else to really say.

“It’s not your fault,” he sighs. “I should have been more careful.”

“I can still probably repair the casing, if you’d like,” she offers. 

He looks so hopeful in that moment her heart nearly melts. “Could you? That would be amazing if you could.”

Yoruki didn’t have a crush on Sukea. She didn’t, because crushing on customers wasn’t professional. 

Oh, but he was precious.

“No problem,” she definitely doesn’t squeak. “I’ll, um, I should have it ready for you in a couple days, and we can discuss payment then?”

“That sounds good to me,” Sukea says, gently pushing the camera towards her. “Thank you, Yoruki-san.”

He gives her a wave as he walks out, and she watches him as long as she can without falling over the counter. 

Yoruki enjoys working on clocks, she really does. But she knows she won’t be able to focus on the pocket watch until she has this camera fixed.

“‘We can discuss payment then’,” Shishou calls from the other room in a high pitched voice. “‘Oh, handsome customer-san, maybe over lunch?’”

“ _Shishou_!” she shrieks, rolling off the counter and hunkering down to hide her burning face. At least she got a pocket watch out of this, even if it was proving to be a regular customer interaction.


End file.
